CALGARY — The former girlfriend of Calgary Stampeders’ football star Joffrey Reynolds testified on Thursday how he kicked her in the back of the leg during a dispute in a bar, then attacked her and threw her to the floor and tried to choke her at her downtown condo last July.

Kaitlin (Kathy) Ward, 27, who said she had an on-off relationship with Reynolds for six years, also said Reynolds berated her and called her derogatory names including “bitch.”

“I was scared, terrified, losing breath,” Ward said of the harrowing incident.

Ward said the incident began at Black Betty’s bar after she was told Reynolds had been cheating on her. He wanted to discuss the relationship that night, but she told him they should enjoy themselves and discuss it the next morning.

As she was leaving, she said, he kicked her just above the Achilles heel. Ward said she left the bar and went to a female friend’s house for a couple of hours, then went home.

When she entered her bedroom, she surprisingly found him there as he had no key and would have had to get past security at the Eau Claire residential complex.

“I was probably a little taken aback, surprised that he’s in my house,” Ward told Crown prosecutor Hyatt Mograbee. “I went by the front door, opened it and tried shoo him out, That’s when he kind of tackled me.

“He was smothering my mouth, mostly choking me, shoving my chin into the ground. His hands are over my mouth or around my neck. He was choking me or strangling me. I was gasping for air at some point. I lost all . . . he cut off my air. He was kind of taking away my air, covering my nose and mouth. I’m clawing at my face to pry his hands off.”

Reynolds, the Canadian Football League team’s all-time leading rusher, an all-star and a member of the 2008 Grey Cup champions, has pleaded not guilty to housebreaking to commit assault, assault causing bodily harm and common assault in relation to the July 14 incidents.

Stan Rogers, a security guard at the condo building, said Reynolds twice tried to get into the complex, at 2:18 and 2:49 a.m., but he refused his entry as Ward indicated she was not taking any guests.

He said he does not know how Reynolds would have later got into the building.

Ward said after the incident she asked Reynolds what he wanted, after she got his hands off her neck, and he told her to shut up and he started calling her names. He said he knocked her to the floor a second time, put his knee in her back, then pulled her up by her hair.

The incident finally ended when she said he could stay for the night. Ward said Reynolds fell asleep quickly but she slept very little that night, got up in the morning on a ruse to get makeup to cover up the bruises, then went to her friend’s home and called police.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Brandi Collins, Ward denied she struck Reynolds first. She also denied ever having been aggressive with him.

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